


a month of sundays

by green_postit



Category: Doctor Who (2005), Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Crossover Pairings, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-28
Updated: 2013-02-28
Packaged: 2017-12-03 20:57:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/702569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/green_postit/pseuds/green_postit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Her whole life, all Donna wanted was to be happy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a month of sundays

Her whole life, all Donna wanted was to be happy.

She went to primary and secondary like a good little girl, passed her A-levels and graduated to her mum and Gramps clapping loudly from the middle of the auditorium. 

She did a year of college, and like most students, had more fun in the pubs with her girlfriends than in lecture halls, hunched over spiraled notepads. She took a gap in the middle of uni to 'discover herself' and she did temp work to earn the money she was going to use to travel the globe.

It's been fifteen years.

She never went back to school and she's still a secretary, hasn't got five quid to rub together and hasn't managed further than Glasgow.

She ignores her mum's pointed disapproval, tries to not let it dig under her skin the way it did when she was twenty-one, twenty-five, thirty, thirty-five. Instead of traveling the world, she smuggles whisky into her tea and curls on the chair near Gramps, lets him tell her these wonderful stories of a man in a blue policeman's box.

Gramps talks with his whole body, punctuates with his arms, waggles his fingers in complex math equations. His hands are smudged black, newspaper ink set deep into the pads of his fingers. Rain or shine, he's up at dawn to open his stand, tugs on his woolen cap and disappears until noon.

Fifty years of selling stories, selling history, born during a war and served his country when he was of age. He has just enough money to keep his cup full, enough spare time to keep up with the odd hobbies that keeps him happy.

He looks to the stars the way a devout man looks to God, keeps her smiling with conspiracies and theories, keeps mentioning the man and his box over and over.

Sitting with Gramps, listening to his passions, sipping her spiked tea, she thinks she's happy.

Then she meets The Doctor.

\--

She doesn't really understand much of what The Doctor says, figures she has eternity to pick up on the terminology, his ticks. He's brilliant but a little barmy, gauges her reactions the same way little children watch a baking soda and vinegar volcano.

She can ignore most of his nonsense, always offers up her opinions, will argue till she's bright red in the face and screeching when she thinks he's wrong—knows that for all his brilliance and power, he's not infallible.

She thinks that's what sets her apart from the others, why he enjoys her company so much. She'll fawn only when it's appropriate, allows herself just a little starry-eyed wonder every third galaxy, openly cried _once_ when he took her to a completely new universe and let her be the first creature to step foot on the velvety grass.

She'll fight and push and he'll smile his infectious grin whenever he manages to rile her up. They usually spend the next few days in a particular relaxing era, an alien planet with six suns and perfectly chilled water.

Donna knows it's his way of apologizing.

She doesn't complain, just pulls her hair into a high ponytail and soaks up the sunrays, feels her skin flush pink and freckles pop up like lemon juice messages under a flame.

\--

She's present for the signing of the Treaty of Corbeil. It's not particularly interesting and goes on pompously long, but it's when King Louis XI signs his name, does it truly dawn on her she's not on holiday in some foreign country with strange customs and strange languages.

She's traveling through time; she's witnessing history as it's happening. 

The Doctor, for all his many instances of obliviousness, puts his hand around her shoulders, a loose, comforting embrace—something she imagines him doing very often—and walks her back to the TARDIS.

\--

They literally appear out of thin air in a swirl of sparkling silver, two men, both tall and broad and very, very American.

The blond man reaches for the gun at his belt and Donna screams and foolishly covers her face with her arms. The Doctor spins around quickly, points his screwdriver and the strange gun falls apart in the intruder's hand.

She darts behind The Doctor, crosses her arms across her chest to stifle the sound of her thundering heart.

"Who are you?" she demands.

She doesn't think The Doctor notices, but the blond shifts a step forward; positions himself between The Doctor's screwdriver and his handsome friend with his hands raised. He's surrendering, but the way his eyes dart back and forth across the room, assessing, plotting, Donna knows he's faking.

"Captain Jim Kirk," he replies smoothly, stands impossibly straighter, widens himself as far as his body can expand, completely shielding the man behind him. His companion notices—growls—his eyebrow twitching in exasperation.

She hasn't been with The Doctor for very long, but she expects him to deal with the men the same way most people would a bumbling burglar. She's expecting him to tie them up with some sort of alien rope or handcuff them with magic restraints, frisk them and remove all other potential weapons.

Instead, The Doctor actually gushes, claps his hands together the way she used to on Christmas morning. " _The_ Jim Kirk? As in, James T. Kirk, Captain of the USS Enterprise?"

The other man scoffs, tosses his hands up in a familiar, frustrated gesture. The Doctor pockets his screwdriver and reaches out to shake the captain's hand, enthusiastic and fawning.

"Donna! This is James Kirk!" He says as if he's just introduced her to John Lennon and can't believe how thick she is for not immediately swooning. "This man is going to discover the Kasterborous constellation!"

"Going—" Jim interrupts, doesn't look confused, but weary. "Wait, are you from the future?"

"Oh, I'm from everywhere."

Donna wonders what kind of captain Jim Kirk is if all that answer earns is a bright peal of laughter.

\--

They've been with them a day now, the other doctor and the pretty captain. 

They were beaming down for a month long shore leave when they accidentally ended up in the middle of the TARDIS. The Doctor convinces them—mostly Jim—to stay with them for the time instead, promises he'll return them to their time not one minute after their shore leave is scheduled to end.

Donna doesn't mind that these strangers are interrupting her big adventure. Company, company that didn't sometimes makes references to humanity in the way some people comment on a girl's number scrawled across a bathroom stall door, that would be fantastic.

They're from the twenty-third century, work for a peacekeeping armada dedicated to space exploration and unifying the cosmos. Jim captains the flagship of the fleet, a fact he says with a mix of modesty and pride.

Donna can't imagine the young man with the wicked grin and filthy smile managing a Starbucks let alone a Starship. He's impossibly restless, moves around the TARDIS with an energy reserved for incarcerated men. 

Donna's never known just how much the inside of the TARDIS could feel like a tiny police box when it wanted to.

\--

The Doctor makes an off-handed comment—mentions how he'd always remembered James Kirk having dark brown eyes—and they're off. 

They explain how they're from an alternative reality; explain how a man named Nero fell through a black hole and ripped their realties apart, left everything in a liminal state of flux, left two universes painfully unfinished and shaken.

The way Jim's eyes darken is all the proof Donna needs that he knows more than he's telling, figures he's nosey enough to have somehow gotten himself mixed between the two; a dollop of color spread impossibly thin on a canvas. 

"Impossible." The Doctor states, firm and serious. "There's no 'alternatives' in time. Everything that is supposed to happen will happen."

He explains to them that despite popular belief, time is nonlinear, that it's more like a ball of tangled yarn waiting to be unraveled; that every moment is susceptible to all forms of change—except for the few moments that aren't.

The Doctor finishes by calling their existence an overlap.

"That's got to be the most roundabout way of calling us mistakes I've ever heard," the dark haired bloke's sarcasm drips. 

"Could be worse," she reminds him, follows the long arch of his eyebrow when he looks at her. She shrugs, has nothing to follow her statement with, which is probably the main reason behind him chuckling.

"Leonard McCoy," he introduces, straightens his back and offers his hand much like how Donna assumes a prince would introduce himself to his princess. 

Of course he turns out to be a doctor. 

Even from six galaxies away, Donna can hear her mum's contented cheering.

\--

Donna likes the doctor—the _real_ doctor—quite a bit.

He's the type of man mum always pushed her toward and she backed away from instinctively. She feels drawn to this one, though. Likes his scruff and his scowl, likes how his handsome features will darken when he's angry, how he'll politely excuse himself before he'll pull Jim aside and hiss his disapproval in a voice that leaves no room for discussion.

He's rough like the pavement she'd always scrape her knees on in lower school, but his eyes are soft and compassionate, sympathetic. His broad hands are calloused but gentle when he touches her. He calls her 'Miss' and 'M'am' in his syrupy American accent, makes heat flutter and pool low in her belly.

His smiles, rare as they are, make her feel safe in a way The Doctor and the TARDIS never have.

She calls him Leo where Jim calls him Bones. The Doctor calls him Doctor and chuckles every time like he's one half of Abbott and Costello doing his intergalactic version of ' _Who's on First_ '.

\--

The Doctor takes them to Rome for a weekend; points out the Arena and the gladiators like the tour guides she and her friends poked fun of on school trips to the museum. The Doctor, she realized quickly, has an annoying habit of confusing the tenses of his sentences, talks about things in the past and future tense, mixes in things that have happened with what will happen.

It's always left Donna feeling vaguely cold, like she doesn't have a steady set of legs beneath her.

"Miss Donna?" Leo stands beside her, his bright blue shirt exchanged for a more demure, white one. He's outrageously handsome; wide shoulders with thickly muscled arms. It's unfair, Donna thinks, how she'd meet someone so attractive and interesting and she's (technically) almost three hundred years older than him.

Leo politely offers his arm and they stroll casually through the packed streets, pass the fabrics and vegetables and pretty copper jewelry. 

Jim and The Doctor are just ahead of them, The Doctor standing out painfully in his tidy tweed suit, Jim standing out with shining blond hair and overwhelming blue eyes. He's a streak of color in the simple marketplace, bright and vibrant. 

She looks up at Leo, notices not for the first time, how his eyes soften at the corners whenever he watches Jim, how lax his muscles will sag when he has Jim directly in his eye line. 

"Bones!" Jim shouts, beacons them over with a flailing hand. When they're close enough, he points. "Look! It's Caesar!" 

Donna can see the Emperor perfectly from where she's resting against the smooth stonewall, Leo to her back, Jim to her left. She watches the man on his horse as he marches with a string of generals behind him, their armored chests glittering like coins at the bottom of a fountain. 

"He kinda looks like you, Bones." Jim tilts his head, squints.

"Don't be stupid." Leo snaps good-naturedly, but cranes his neck for a better view.

Jim's right. In another life, they could be twins.

\--

Jim absorbs every word The Doctor says, the apt pupil with the perfect notes and perfect tests Donna would sometimes cheat off when the teacher wasn't looking.

He's always asking questions, mostly about the TARDIS, about The Doctor himself. He states a man named Scotty would love to get his hands on the blueprints for the TARDIS. Jim's magnetic blue eyes widen comically when The Doctor tells him TARDIS's aren't built, but grown like carrots.

The Doctor's as curious of them as they are of him. Leo point blank asks him about the medical achievements of the future, grumbles without any of his fire when The Doctor uploads files and files of hundreds of vaccines for diseases and ailments, tells Leo he's given him everything except the disease he'll cure himself, says it would be cheating otherwise.

The Doctor openly, contentedly, answers almost all of Jim's questions. Jim makes Donna feel guilty for not paying closer attention to what The Doctor's told her, for not tapping into the infinite pool of knowledge The Doctor seems to be the keeper of. 

But he never said there'd be a quiz at the end of the journey, so bugger it.

Though, Donna feels like the teacher's pet whenever she sees the quick flash of worry in The Doctor's soft, brown eyes. He's always been vague around the details of certain things—a consequence of having your life lived out of order—but Donna's been with him long enough to know when's trying to lie. 

He doesn't answer any of the questions about him home planet, about the Time Lords. He'll give just enough to satisfy Jim's inquiries, and then immediately distract him with diagrams and data sheets of thousands of centuries worth of alien customs. 

Donna always forgets that for as much as he looks like a human, The Doctor is very much an alien, albeit a little less green and bug-eyed than the movies would lead her to believe. 

"Why don't you want him knowing anything about your world?" she asks when Jim and Leo are exploring a rock quarry several miles away from them.

The Doctor smiles the smile that Donna knows won't give her an ounce of real information.

"That man," he nods his head in Jim's direction, "is going to discover the Kasterborous constellation." Before Donna can interrupt, The Doctor continues. "His son and the daughter of his Chief Engineer are going to marry there, set up the first civilization on a remote, orange planet and have a son."

He stops talking, smiles fondly, wistfully.

"Go on," she encourages.

"His son is going to found my home planet." 

Oh.

 _Oh_.

\--

They end up in New Orleans for Mardi Gras, 1961. They spend the whole day on Coconut Beach.

The heat's as thick as steam, makes her perspire and fan her face with her hand. The thin summer dress she's in sticks to her skin like a plaster. Jim's right next to her, shirt stripped off, chest glistening. He's just as flushed as she is, red across the bridge of his nose, his eyes a deep, watery blue.

He peels her hair from her shoulders, tucks it behind her ears, twines it around the wilting bun high atop her head.

"Don't you dare come on to me," she threatens, points her finger directly between his eyes. Jim tries to look innocent but it's not a color he wears well. He smiles, a quick pull to his lush mouth, before he turns and searches the throngs of people for Leo.

Donna would be lying to herself if she said she wasn't flattered, but Jim's an insatiable flirt—worse—doesn't even seem to be aware he's doing it until it's too late. Just yesterday, he almost got them all executed when he winked at the daughter of the Argolin High Commander.

"This is incredible," he says, almost to no one, but Donna looks up, follows his gaze until she sees Leo, right at the edge of water, head tilted up to the sun like a starving flower. He's the only one who doesn't seem to mind the heat, soaks it in as if he's breathing for the first time.

Jim somehow conned him into a pair of red swimming trunks, a pair that slip just a little too low, that reveal the lean cut of his hipbones. Donna knows Jim chose those pair specifically, that he's enjoying the view just as much as she is. 

"I didn't know he had freckles," Jim says, this time, to her. Donna scratches self-consciously at the little brown dots parading up and down her arms, span her shoulders in little clusters. 

He skims a finger across her elbow, traces the space between the freckles like how he'd map out a solar system.

\--

Donna doesn't trust Jim.

He's got a quick mouth and quick eyes and quick reflexes and always hovers over the Doctor's shoulder. Both of the doctors, really, but her doctor more.

He watches the controls and levers, quick brain taking in every bit of engineering genius used in operating the TARDIS, beams with naive joy whenever the TARDIS bends to his request, sails past all the foreign planets and into the right eras. 

It's been almost two weeks, when he boldly announces, "You know, you could fix the chameleon circuit if you hotwired the fragment links and superseded the binary—"

The Doctor interrupts, laughs loud enough that even Leo looks over.

"History's got you dead right, Jim," he smiles, bounces on the balls of his feet.

"Don't encourage him," Leo grumbles, returns to his datapad.

Jim's smiles are all teeth, the blue of his eyes blinding.

Donna doesn't trust him farther than she could throw him. He acts daft but is absolutely brilliant—a genius, probably—figured out immediately where the line was and just how far he could cross it before he stepped on toes. 

Donna doesn't trust Jim Kirk at all. 

But she sure loves getting drunk with him.

\--

They press their heads together, whisper and slur their words over a pint of German beer. It's thick like foam, sour and sweet and hits her blood immediately. She's giggling, her vision liquidy, fuzzy. She and Jim lost Leo and The Doctor three pints ago.

They're stumbling like fools outside, Jim's arm tight around her waist, keeps her close to him as they stagger down the empty street, laugh loud and obnoxious.

They find a bench and collapse heavily, the breath whooshing from her lungs as Jim pours himself across her, tucks his legs to his chest and rests his head on her lap. 

"Lightweight," she chides, but cards her fingers through his hair. Jim practically gurgles in her lap, rubs his nose against her thigh and makes her laugh. 

"This is so incredible," he repeats, turns so he's looking up at her. She keeps petting him, only stops when he tangles their fingers, presses their palms together like a devout prayer. "You're incredible."

"You're drunk," she knows she's blushing, knows Jim's sharp eyes can see. He pushes himself up, angles his body towards hers, presses their chests together. This close, Jim's eyes are positively demonic, hypnotizing. 

"Bones likes you," he says in an even voice, one that sounds infinitely more sober than a few moments ago. "Bones doesn't really like anyone."

She swallows, doesn't know how to respond.

"I—" Jim starts, licks his lips and leans in closer. "I don't like sharing. I never had anything anybody ever wanted. Until him."

"Jim, I—"

"But if it's you," he smiles. "If it's you, I don't mind."

\--

Confirmation, Donna discovers, three weeks into their vacation, is the worst part of suspicion.

They're on Neptune, at a spa that only works on reservations. It's a good thing she's traveling with a Time Lord, she realizes, when The Doctor tells everyone he booked rooms for all of them three years prior. 

Donna's en route to the fizzling hottub, the one with the champagne bubble water that supposedly adds a year to your life, when she catches them.

Her fingers barely plug the gasp that escapes her mouth at the sight of them, at the sight of Jim's tanned, muscular back glistening with water, at the voracious way his mouth is plundering Leo's, at the frantic scramble of their hands. They look so desperate, so frenzied. 

Leo's trying to hush Jim, his own moans no quieter. "Christ, Jim," he curses, heady and sticky with need, his accent a twangy, thick slur. Jim doesn't give him a chance to protest further, both his hands dipping below the bubbling water.

Leo's entire body jumps, his head snapping back as Jim swallows the moan right from his mouth, bites at his bottom lip as he stutters, as his nails scratch their way up and down Jim's spine. 

Donna throbs between her legs, squirms. She feels trapped, legs glued under the power of her arousal.

Jim's eye slant toward her, doesn't stop kissing Leo, but is fully looking at her from the corner of his eyes. 

"Come," he orders, knows it could be for Leo but _knows_ it's for her. She finds herself at the edge of the tub, sinking to her knees. Leo pulls away from Jim's mouth with a gasp when he feels her hair brush his damp shoulder.

"Donna," he groans. All the brown has drained from his eyes, leaves behind clover green irises. Jim's strong hand cups Leo's jaw, tilts his head back, angles his mouth directly in line with hers. She leans down the spare inch, brings their mouths together just as Jim kisses down Leo's chest. His head disappears beneath the water and Leo's entire body snaps straight, every muscle tenses.

Donna grabs his face, sucks on his tongue, draws him further into her mouth. He twists a hand in her hair, groans out her name and Jim's, swears and shakes. She doesn't want to stop kissing him, loves the warmth of his mouth, the velvety glide of his tongue. She's so sure she can taste Jim, can taste them both.

All too soon, Leo screams into her throat, goes impossibly taut before he wilts. Her lips are bruised, hot and puffy when they pull away, when Jim's flushed, heaving face reappears from the water. 

His smile is filthy, smug.

He touches Leo's face, guides Leo back toward him. Leo's gaze is locked on her as Jim pulls him away, as he presses his chest flat against Leo's and stretches up, passes Leo's mouth and grabs her by the hair, smashes their mouths together and licks all along her pallet.

She can taste Leo, strong and just a little salty. 

"Come back to our room," she hears Jim's voice, but it's impossible, can't be Jim since his mouth his firmly against hers. Jim's forcibly pried off her face, Leo chasing his taste like a shot of the best whiskey after a pint.

\--

She loves watching them together. 

Jim's restless, reckless energy is singularly focused when he's with Leo, is so passionate and enthralling, encompassing. Leo, with his soothing demeanor and intense presence conquers their bedroom like a god. 

She loves it when Jim will get Leo begging, when Leo makes Jim scream and grunt and fight. She could watch them for hours—has watched them for hours—and loved every moment of it.

She's taken to commanding them around, lets the little thrill of power wash over her when Jim will put his mouth on Leo's cock when she orders him to, when Leo will spreads his legs and let Jim fall between them. 

Jim's taken to calling her 'Captain', a nickname she'll take literally, calls him a space hussy whenever his moans taper into desperate pleas. 

She knows she's no Kate Moss, has never been, but the way they both look at her, she feels like royalty, like the fairytale princess who ended up with two Prince Charmings and a lifetime of happily ever after.

\--

She has Leo's back against her bare chest, his smooth, freckled skin scratching her nipples just right. She's holding Leo's legs open with hers, has his hands pinned beneath hers, at her sides, firmly stamped on the silky sheets. Jim's been fucking him for the last forty minutes, both so close to coming she can taste their release in the air.

Leo's leaking like a sieve, gorgeous cock red and bobbing, swollen and so hard. She has no idea how Jim's still hanging on, how he's managed to keep up the pace she requested, how he hasn't already come and collapsed. 

Stubborn, she notes. Leo certainly has a type.

"Pull yourself together, love," she soothingly shushes Jim's whimpering pleas, kisses Jim then Leo. Jim slows his frantic thrusting, buries his head into Donna's shoulder and inhales with shaking lungs. He's absolutely wrecked, burning hot, eyes so hazy and unfocused he appears drugged.

"Donna," he whimpers. She kisses him, just a light flutter of their lips.

"Did I say you could stop?" 

Jim groans loudly, brokenly as he thrusts, wet and noisy, pounds and pounds into Leo, makes all three arch. Leo curses, hooks his knees around Jim's hips. She wiggles her hand between them, let's Leo rut against her palm for just a little bit before she slides lower, wraps her fingers around Jim's dick where it's pistoning in and out of Leo.

They both come at exactly the same moment, right when Donna hums low in her throat, signals they've pleased her. Jim's scream is muffled by the flesh of Leo's shoulder, her hand clapped across Leo's mouth, muffling all sound except for their unsteady breathing. 

She doesn't know if she's always been this perverse or if these two men bring it out of her in spades, but when they peel away from each other—drape themselves across her sides and keep her coming all night, passing her back and forth between them until their mouths blur together—their hands are the only thing keeping her anchored to the ground, from flying apart.

\--

"Is it always like this, where you're from?"

Leo looks up at her from the end of the bed, kisses her ankles and works his way up. He pauses at her bellybutton, licks and tickles her until she bats him away. He grabs her hands and pins them in a loose grip, kisses the hollow of her neck and then her mouth.

"Is what like what, kitten?"

The nickname hits low, makes her writhe and whimper. "Like _this_ , with Jim. Peaceful."

Leo laughs, rich and dark, shakes his head. "It's not dull," he responds tactfully, endearingly. "You know Jim."

And she does, she realizes. Knows he's mischievous and kind, is willing to share his most prized possession with a woman he's only just met because he knows how happy it would make her, make him, make _them_.

It dawns on her then, just how easy it would be to fall in love with Jim Kirk, it's no wonder Leo feels the way he does. If she had to spend every day of every year with him, she'd be a completely different person.

She'd be like Leo. She'd be happy.

Leo kisses her, short-circuits her brain as he licks down her belly, nudges her legs apart. Jim mentioned how he'd been married once, how his divorce prompted him into Starfleet service and right into Jim's greedy arms. 

Donna doesn't believe it for a second. There's no way—none whatsoever—that any woman would let a man with a mouth and tongue like his get away, let alone forcibly eject him from the planet. 

Leo works her clit like he made it for her, like he commands the very genetic codes to her pleasure. She'd believe it, too, the way he can have her convulsing and clenching on his fingers, how he'll shush her with his mouth full, worm his tongue deep into her and purr.

"Fuck," Jim curses loudly, groans. "I love watching you fuck her." 

Jim stretches across the right hand side of the bed and rubs at the base of her spine with his hands, eases her down as Leo grips her hips. Jim swears he can feel it when Leo slides into her, can feel the way she stretches and tightens all along his cock.

He never shuts up, always spewing dirty little praises, dark promises that he keeps tenfold. Leo at her front, Jim behind her, all their limbs intertwined and tangled. Leo feels so thick and huge inside her, Jim's nimble fingers coaxing orgasm after orgasm out of her, both taking turns kissing her mouth, holding her.

They curl together, her hair tangled and sticking to their bodies like vines. Jim presses his nose against the back of her neck, inhales their joint stench of sex and sweat, mouths at her damp skin and links fingers with Leo.

They fall asleep, just like this, every night of the third week, Leo's heart under her head, Jim's smile against her back, giggle like schoolchildren and repeat their nightly performances every morning.

\--

It's their last day together. Donna tries not to think about how empty the TARDIS is going to feel, how after a month of the noise and chaos and excitement, it's all going to disappear.

She wonders if this is why The Doctor bounces from companion to companion without pause between them, wonders if this feeling of grief that's clawing at her heart is why he never allows them to get close enough. 

Donna can't imagine a life lived like that, always in flux, always alone, even when surrounded by people. She doesn't like the impermanent sense of contentment she feels, knows this is the exact reason she vowed to be with The Doctor forever. 

She can't imagine a whole life never having one moment to call your own, feels greedy when she considers she could have it all. The Doctor might flitter around time, without a planet, without a family, without a real place to hang is hat, but Donna's going to give him his first real friend, the first person he'll always be able to count on, the only person who won't vanish to the ticking clock of time.

They spend their last night at a pleasant, but crowded, little restaurant just on the outskirts of the Psi Quadrant. 

All the food is bright yellow, but tastes like every delicious morsel of food she's consumed over the course of her whole life. Every bite is new, different, so, so delicious she never wants the meal to end.

After, they sit at the bar, order yellow drinks that are served in wonky bottles that Donna would love to put on a window ledge, let the sun dance along the colors and prism a room like a disco ball.

Leo's at the end of the bar, tips his empty glass toward the bartender expectantly. Donna drags her thumb, spreads the dampness of her mouth around the rim of her glass. She's still nursing her first drink, feels dizzy from the sugar in the daiquiri/piña colada mix. 

Jim drains the last of his bottle, licks his lips before he turns to The Doctor with a wicked little grin on his face.

"Don't suppose I'll get an answer if I ask when I kick the bucket, huh?" 

It's the first time Jim's asked anything about himself, his future. The Doctor looks sheepish, scratches behind an ear. "That wouldn't be wise, Jim."

"Couldn't hurt to ask." Jim chuckles, absolutely no trace of malice in his voice.

There's a pleasant lull, then— 

"Do I keep him safe?"

They both look at Jim, at how serious his face has become, how his eyes are hard like sapphires. He's staring at Leo. Donna wonder how the man can captain a ship when his eyes always seem to be watching Leo like he's the entire expanse of the cosmos rolled into one. 

"You do." The Doctor responds immediately, knows not to keep that information secret.

The sound Jim makes—a choked sob—startles her so much her hand jerks, yellow liquid sloshing over the rim and dribbling down the side of her glass. He's shaking like he's crying, but his smile is so bright it nearly downs out the fading sunset. 

It's the sound—the look—of complete relief, of perfect peace. When he looks at Donna, his eyes are wet and guileless, calm and elated. 

He's happy.

\--

They drop them off on a planet called Risa, 288 years after Donna was born.

Jim wraps her in a tight bear hug, plays with the ends of her hair before giving her a private smile she's only seen him give Leo. Leo kisses the back of her hand, ever the gentleman.

"See you around, kitten."

It's the nickname that undoes her. She flings herself toward them both, clings just a little before she pulls herself off, kisses them both squarely on the mouth before she shushes them and orders them away.

"Aye aye, Captain." Jim mocks with a wink, a salute. 

"Bloody space hussy," she retorts back, laughs when he brushes the tears from her eyes and kisses her forehead.

"Keep your doctor safe," he whispers in her hair, hugs her one last time.

"Keep _our_ doctor safe," she whispers back, knows Jim would die before he allowed any harm to befall Leo. 

They disappear, much like how they arrived, a swirl of glittering light and they're gone, back to their ship, back to their grand adventure through space.

The Doctor stands by her side, allows her a few moments to compose herself. When her eyes are dry, she scrubs at her cheeks, clears her throat.

"Well, hurry up then," she scolds, steps inside the TARDIS as The Doctor laughs, clear as a church bell. When she looks at him, she sees her Doctor, her friend, her cohort, her partner. 

She's ready for her adventure to begin again, realizes that the tears in her eyes and the loss in her belly are just constant reminders of what being human feels life.

Little reminders of what true happiness feels like.


End file.
